Making performance improvement real

Last week I visited Haldex Concentric in Birmingham who manufacture pumps for commercial vehicle engines. They are shortlisted for an award at the Midlands Excellence Awards, to be announced this week.

They have instigated a continuous improvement approach to improving their productivity using both Six Sigma and Lean approaches. This allows them to clearly demonstrate their improvement in productivity over time. Their approach to reporting business performance demonstrates both simplicity and effectiveness.

Assertiveness – a key life skill?

Last week I was delivering a training day which focussed on assertiveness for half a day. Out of the 10 delegates for the afternoon only one was male and most of them were in their 20s. The majority of them were confident and mixed easily with the delegates they didn’t know. However, when asked to give a two-minute presentation about themself and their role at work, concentrating on their skills and abilities most of themwere very shy and avoided talking about themselves. One delegate didn’t manage to say anything at all – I’m not that scary really!